While I’m still rather new to NEWS, Sakura Girl kind of helped me to get into them a little more. The song has a pretty mellow dance sound going for it with a pretty cool beat. I find it funny they don’t really say the title but say ~sakura onna~ which roughly means the same thing, but whatever. While I don’t know the members by heart yet, I kind of like the solos too. It’s a quirky lil tune and doesn’t sound dated like some of the stuff back on their last album “color”.

2. Anata ga Tonari ni Iru Dake de

The true B-side of the single is of course a ballad from the ballads and from listening, I think Tomohisa and Ryo get solos through this song while the other guys play the chorus and background stuff. I don’t know why, but I get a winter feeling from this song and I’m like aren’t we a bit late on this? It’s alright, but I think there’s better NEWS ballads.

3. Love Melodies

So we start splitting off into the certain editions of the single. Love Melodies appears on the Limited version of the single and I was expecting some mundane mid-tempo track, but then this beat and strings comes in and feels like a Nana Mizuki tune with how it moves. I found this song charming for sure and a whole lot more catchier than “Sakura Girl”. It’s cute and rather good for the guys.

4. FREEDOM

I’m starting to think NEWS just sounds good under a dance arrangement and with FREEDOM which is only on the Regular edition of the single, they tried getting sexy going here and while the acoustic guitar does throw the mood off, it’s not bad. Might be a little cheesy at parts and for that I don’t think I like this song as much as I did with “Love Melodies”.

5. Sakura Girl (Acoustic version)

Cutting the song down to 2 minutes, we get a very odd sounding version of the A-side. I guess the whole acappella thing might fit them, but they really aren’t at Tohoshinki’s level of singing and someone in the group has a hard time harmonizing during the main singing which disappointed me, but I guess it’s not bad and luckily they don’t go through the entire song.